Just chillin, on the floor, all day long. Yvonne prioritized and snapped the photo before helping me up.

Originally posted on Facebook 03/01/2013

I was thinking about what to say in my next post when the story came to me this morning. I stayed home from work today because the cold that’s been making its way around central Oregon finally caught up to me. Yvonne had left for work but I was set to spend the day in my chair and get some rest by putting my head on the desk or table. I did have a conference call at 9 am that I needed to be on because I was facilitating it. So I got all set up at my desk – phone, paper, pen, call-in codes, coffee, classical music. At 8:50 I had to blow my nose so I reached over to my right to grab a roll of toilet paper on the floor. I reach for things on the floor maybe 10 times a day, but today because I was weak from the cold, once I got over, I couldn’t pull myself back up. I braced myself with my right fist on the floor but each time I tried to lift up, my hips shifted to the left and put me more out of balance. Also, with each shift my legs got stiffer, adding to the imbalance. I’ve had problems in the past where a cold or minor infection increased the spasticity, or stiffness, in my legs so I wasn’t surprised by this, but this time I couldn’t get back up, and I was home alone. Pretty quickly I was thinking “uh, uh here we go…” and so no sooner was I rolling over and right out of my chair. Fortunately my right hand was already bracing on the floor and I was able to get my left hand down too and go into a controlled roll to the floor between my chair and Yvonne’s desk. I was able to end up on my left side with my right, good (better of the two) hand up so that it was free to use. My legs were kind of bent into the space under the desk, but as I tried to twist into a sitting position, my body went rigid and as much as I tried to reach up to the desk, I only got more twisted. I knew that with each twist I ran the risk of getting myself really stuck in a really uncomfortable position for a long time and so I stopped. So by now I was on the floor and supposed to initiate a conference call in 10 minutes but I couldn’t reach my phone. I realized that not only was I going to miss the call with about 10 people waiting, but Yvonne wouldn’t be home for 6 more hours. At this point all I could do was chuckle, write off the call, and set about making myself comfortable. Underneath the seat of my chair was my down jacket in a stuff sack. I was able to reach it and use it for a pillow. I was also able to reach the pesky roll of toilet paper that caused the predicament in the first place and use it as pad under my knee. So there I was for the next 6 hours until Yvonne came home at 3:15 pm and found me on the floor with a big grin on my face. I explained that I had spent a quiet day out of my chair, free of my phone and computer, while listening to good classical music – it just happened to be on the floor. Always look for the upside!